Our Finale
by skywolf666
Summary: Minagoroshi-hen Sono Hachi: Finale. He was already gone, and she couldn't bring him back. She couldn't leave him alone either, and with a resolve so powerful that it defied Death himself, she turned around to face it head on for him. C-Death. Mion/Keiichi


"KEIICHI!"

I never knew I could make a sound like that before. The scream, _his name_, just ripped through my throat before I had a chance to even think of what had just happened. There was no slowing down of time like I'd seen in the movies, there was no dramatic fall from grace, he just fell in a heap on the ground like a ragdoll. The bat he'd been holding hit the ground with a metallic thud, but then I didn't hear anything else then.

I stopped in my tracks and fell to my knees, my body once again demanding compliance when my mind had frozen over. I leaned over him, dead to all emotion as I took in his face. At first, there was no blood, no sign that he had actually been shot, but I knew better. He gagged, and the vicious red liquid poured from his mouth like a fountain. His eyes were tortured and almost immediately he went pale as more blood pooled below him from the wound in his chest.

"S-Sorry everybody... Looks like I'm out..." His voice seemed so far away in my head as everyone else fell beside him, shock falling over us all like some miasma. I grabbed his hand and held it to my chest, feeling his warmth fading away with every second that slipped by. He turned his head, staring at each of us in turn as the agony washed over him too, and he muttered through the blood, "Everyone... Hurry up, and run!"

"No!" Was I actually speaking? My mind kicked in, and for one long second, I was hit by the reality of what had just happened. He was already going cold, he'd lost too much blood and wouldn't live for much longer. Even thinking that, my chest ripped in two and I bled with him, it couldn't have been true. The agony was unlike anything I had ever felt in my life, it cut me open, slit my wrists and dissected me until I just knew I was dead. My throat hurt, from my scream or from the loss, I wasn't sure, but I still cried out in denial anyway. "This isn't real, this isn't real! You can't die here!"

He moved his hand to reach to me, placing it calmly on top of mine which had been holding his. It was slick with his hot blood, feeling it sickened me but I held on tight nonetheless. His fingers felt so weak as they threaded through mine, and idiotically, I tried to push my strength into his. I knew I couldn't lose him, it wasn't some naive thought that drove me to realize it, it had become a truth so firm that my body was already breaking into pieces just seeing him like this. When had a school crush, a deep friendship, turned into something this fierce? I knew anyway though, too late, I just knew...

I loved him.

His mouth moved but only a strangled groan made it past his lips as he clutched at my hands. Tears began to fall, angry and bitter and before I knew what I was doing, I buried my face against the back of his hand. I couldn't, I couldn't look at him like this, he was half gone already and still trying to make light of it, still trying to make me go. It hurt far too much to look into those eyes and see what I had always wanted, always feared to see.

"Mion..."

The way he said my name, so softly but so agonized, I looked up, his blood sliding down my cheek. It mingled with the tears that I couldn't stop, the tears that flowed so freely now. I whimpered, my chest was heaving, begging me to deny it, to call it a dream. Surely something this painful couldn't be real, not when it involved him of all people. The one person who could always bring a smile to my face, this pain did not belong with him in any reality, dream, or hell.

"Wh...What, Keiichi?"

I savoured the way his name tasted on my tongue, how it rolled past my lips and came out so sweetly. I'd never used his full name before, hiding behind the childish wish to keep my feelings in. He was surrounded by women, prettier, smarter girls than me, a stupid tomboy who had no hope to be what he wanted. Yet, here he was, clutching at my hand with his blood-soaked one, whispering my name to make me see his face.

His eyes stared into mine, and though they were here like the darkness around us, the rest of my friends disappeared. I couldn't see them, couldn't hear them, this moment was just for us. His mouth moved again, and once more, no sound came out except a grunt of pain. I saw his lips move, forming words I had always thought but never dared to speak aloud. Three simple words that at the same time, at that one moment, both tore me apart and held me together.

I couldn't scream anymore, I couldn't even breathe. My limbs turned to lead and I stared in shock at the man who had been the centrepiece of my young teenage life. Rena made a strangled sobbing noise across from me, and Satoko let out a moan so pitiful that I felt it reverberating in my ribs. Why couldn't I speak? I tried to move my lips, tried to force sound out of my mouth, to tell him I felt the same way, but nothing happened. I just stared at him, my eyes wide and still spilling tears, unable to make a noise, unable to move a muscle.

_I love you._

Someone stood up, I didn't even see who it was, so entranced by his dark, agonized eyes. He wasn't even trying to speak anymore, he just stared at me and held my hands as his grip weakened and forced me to hold on tighter. His laughing eyes had turned so soft, so warm that the familiar violet seemed almost liquid. That tenderness, that soft warmth was mine, all for me as I stared back.

I could see my reflection in those eyes, I saw my own iridescent green shimmering with tears, disbelief and agony. Yet somehow, I had that same warmth in my own, I managed to equal his gaze and speak without my voice. I begged silently to let my thoughts reach him, let what I could not say be heard by his soon-to-be deaf ears.

"Everyone, let's go!"

I jerked out of the moment, and turned to look in horror at the one who'd spoken. Rena was on her feet, and while she looked almost every bit as tortured as I was feeling, there was a passion there that I didn't understand. A new ferocity had taken her on, and for a second, I remembered that face before. I had seen that rage, that fury, in her eyes as she spoke of killing the woman who had taken advantage of her father. Everyone jerked and stared at her in complete astonishment, all thinking one coherent thought. We couldn't leave him behind.

"Right now, we have to survive! Keiichi-kun doesn't want us to stay here and die!"

Keiichi chuckled, or at least, I think he did. He turned his head to look at Rena, and gave her one short nod before he was staring at me again. I saw it in the way he set his jaw, he wanted us to abandon him and run for it, to survive unlike him. It was so _typical_, he didn't gave a damn about his own life, not when ours were on the line. He smiled then, that joking smile he'd saved for us, that lit up his face and haunted my worst and most pleasurable dreams. I stared, dumbfounded, at his bloodied lips and was overcome with the sickening urge to kiss him, to taste his blood on my tongue and make him a part of me forever. I was frozen though, even though my body screamed at me to do it, to try, I just couldn't make myself move. It wasn't possible to get up and leave him as he was, it was like trying to walk without legs. He was going to die, and I wasn't going to let him die alone.

A hand grabbed at my wrist, than another, and jerked me to my feet. I scrambled desperately to hold onto his hands, but he'd already released me, still smiling that carefree boyish smile. I looked into the face of the one who dared to pull me away from him, and I was looking into a mirror. Shion's eyes were agonized but her pain didn't even near what I was suffering through. I understood like I'd been slapped across the face, maybe she had struck me as I jolted into the realization that she had lived through this too.

I couldn't speak, but I didn't turn my head to look at Keiichi, I knew if I did it would only make me lose what was left of my sanity. Shion jerked me roughly, though her hand felt so smooth on my skin as she pulled me away from where he had fallen. Everyone else was already racing ahead of us, desperate to escape, to survive. Had so much seriously taken place in only a few fevered seconds?

I followed, blindly, letting my legs move robotically against the ground. I didn't even feel like I was moving, I was still there, kneeling beside him, cradling his dying form in my arms and sobbing into his chestnut coloured hair. My feet slapped loudly against the ground as I ran, feeling my sister's insistent tug on my wrist, urging me faster.

Rena cried out from behind me, and I realized numbly that I'd passed her already. How fast was I running? I was actually even moving? "They've increased their numbers!" Her throat sounded like it had closed on her, voice thick with tears that I knew were spilling down her face too. She moaned out her order for us to keep going, to run, to push ourselves to the limit. "Hurry!"

My body halted, and this time, I ordered it to. My hand, wet with Keiichi's blood, slipped easily from Shion's grasp as I stopped in my place. Rena blew by me, then she halted too, realizing I'd stopped. She turned, they all turned, and stared at me like I'd damn well lost my mind. From under the numbness, the nameless agony that filled and ripped me apart, the old me stirred rebelliously in my blood and placed a devil-may-care smirk on my face. I hadn't realized how much I needed her at that moment, and despite the agony, I embraced her spirit, for I had left mine behind with him.

"Mi-chan?"

"I'll be bait. While I keep 'em busy, you guys run for it." I spoke so nonchalantly, the words didn't even seem to be my own anymore. Shion stared at me in horror, and it was only then that I realized she had been holding onto Satoko as well as me. The little blond was hugging her leg, trembling like a leaf, and the girl who looked so much like me placed her hand automatically onto her head.

"Sis–"

I cut her off, looking meaningfully at Satoko. That girl meant more to her than I did, than anyone else did, and I knew why. She was all she had left of Satoshi, the man who I now knew meant as much to her as Keiichi meant to me. I'd never understood her passion for him, for the long gone, until this very moment. I was surprised by the new feeling on kinship I had with my twin, we both had lost our lovers, but she still had something to hold onto. I didn't. That thought branded into my mind, I ordered her softly, "There's no time to argue. You have a duty to protect Satoko." I turned away from Rika's frightened face, and looked intently at Rena, the girl who was so much stronger than I ever had hoped to be. Stronger than I ever would have the chance to become. "Rena, take care of Rika-chan."

Rena looked at me, looked into my soul and knew what I had already decided to do. She smiled, and her expression was one of sadness and acceptance and she walked forward to take Rika's hand in her own, pulling her forward. There were no goodbyes, I didn't want to hear them even if they tried to say it. This was my ending and I'd race into death's arms like how I would race into Keiichi's, head-on and laughing in his face.

I turned and drew my gun from its holster, towards where I knew _they'd_ be following. I wondered if I could blaze through them to make it to where Keiichi had fallen, maybe to see his eyes one last time and press my lips against his own even if they were cold and lifeless. My legs trembled as I took my first step forward, or backwards I suppose. I shook with fear. Even if I could let my friends see a fake mask of resolve, I didn't want to die.

Survive. He had told me to survive, told us all to live. I did smile then, with a true sort of mischief I didn't actually feel. I never had been one for following the rules, especially when Keiichi was the one who made them. I should have felt guilty for betraying him, for dying beside him when he wanted me to live on without him. Instead, all I felt was a strange new high of giddiness. I'd see him soon enough, wouldn't I? "I'm sorry, Keiichi... I can't listen to you, not this time."

I took off running, my fear still there but replaced now with the ferocity I'd seen in Rena's face. I knew it all now, the pain and anger, the sadness and joy, like all of my emotions from my life now flooded within me at my last ditch attempt to see him again. He'd be so pissed at me in the afterlife, and somehow, that thought made me laugh.

I saw them coming before they saw me, though I must have surprised them because they'd stopped dead in their tracks when I burst through the trees. I started firing before they lifted their guns, moving my eyes so rapidly from one target to the next. One, two, three, four... The bullets hit their marks, a head, a heart, neck, and arm, it was enough for me. I kept on running and shooting until my magazine was empty, and even then I didn't stop moving. Forward, I had to keep moving forward.

I knew where he was, I could see him lying there, frozen with his hand reaching out, almost to welcome me. His eyes were open but dead, there was no more life in him now. A feral snarl ripped past my grit teeth when I digested that fact, even though I'd already known and accepted my fate. I'd be joining him soon enough.

A blast erupted from behind me, no more than a foot away and I staggered in my steps in confusion. I didn't feel the pain at first as the bullet shot through my back and hit my ribcage before punching out from my front. I kept staggering on, focussed on where his corpse lay. He was so close. I reached out to him even as another shot rang out and this time hit its target, straight through my left lung.

The blond's evil laughter echoed behind me, and with two staggering steps, I made it to where I wanted to be. I hit the dirt hard when my legs gave out, and I tasted wet blood on my tongue. Was it mine? My brain was shutting down even as I reached out with my arm, fingers twitching to touch Keiichi's. My warm blood was spilling from the holes in my back and chest, and I knew without a doubt that I was going to die just as he had. I'd known it the second I'd left him behind.

My skin touched his own, and I smiled even as blood poured through my lips and nose. I knew I was dead, my entire body was going cold and I could no longer feel my legs. My fingertips brushed ever so gently against his own, and even though I knew he couldn't move anymore, I swore I felt a twitch under my grasp. Laying there, so close but so far from him, I was filled with a strange contentment that washed away my fear. His voice whispered in my head and warmed my cooling skin, telling me that it was going to be okay. I already knew this, and I stared into his dead eyes with a new joy I'd never felt before. He was dead, but soon I would be too. We could still be together. I could still hold him in my arms even after my death, I could die happily because I knew, I couldn't live without him.

Footsteps, so loud that each one sounded like a gunshot, and then a pressure on my lower back. I didn't look up, I didn't want to tear my eyes away from Keiichi's. I had to see him, he had to be the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes forever. I knew who would take care of me personally, and even then, I could summon no rage or sadness.

"Suicidal, young Sonozaki-san? I expected more from you."

I didn't answer her, even as I felt her lean down and press the barrel of her gun against the back of my head. That gun had killed Keiichi, and that gun would murder me too. It almost felt right. I stared into those lifeless eyes of the person I loved, and I whispered my final words through bloody lips as I tasted his name on my tongue. "I love you... Keiichi."

I never even felt the blow that killed me.

* * *

**AN**

**... Don't ask. Please don't ask. I don't know where it came from, what I was doing, but I had to do it anyway. It was like a cramp I had to untie. Make no mistake, I will be continuing with my other work, but watching Higurashi pretty much damned me into writing at least one fic about it, so here it is. (Why couldn't I have done a fluffy one? Why did it have to be a tragedy?!) Because I was watching Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Kai, episode 13 and was punched repeatedly in the gut by my plot-fairy until I did it. I wrote it from Mion's pov (if that wasn't obvious), and I sincerely believe he was trying to tell her that he loved her when he was dying. But then again, I'm a fangirl so I'm so fricken biassed I wouldn't said it even if it wasn't muted. She loved him, it was obvious when she held his hand and told him not to die. All I wished was that she could've whispered how she felt before she left, and I didn't even do that in my own story. Shows what fanfiction does to a woman, doesn't it? Gah. No reviews are necessary, but I beg of you, no flames. I hate myself enough for this.**

**I'm going to crawl into a hole and die now.**

**Sky**


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